IRS.) DAVENTRY’S 
REPUTATION 


PZ 3 
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Mi 

COPY 1 


BY 

MARGARET PEDLER 


NEW 
GEORGE H. 



YORK 
DORAN COMPANY 





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COPYRIGHT, 1924, 
BY MARGARET PEDLER 


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MRS. DAVENTRY’s REPUTATION 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

©C1A793877 


JUL -2 i924 


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MRS. DAVENTRY’S 
REPUTATION 


M RS. DAVENTRY laid the soft, fluffy powder- 
puff she had just been using down on the glass- 
topped toilet-table and, picking up her lipstick, 
carefully touched her lips, delicately emphasizing their 
charming contour. Then she tilted the mirror and re¬ 
garded the result of her labors attentively. 

Applied art undoubtedly contributed towards her ap¬ 
pearance, although not to any extravagant extent, and it 
was a distinctly attractive face that looked back at her 
from the glass—piquantly angled, with a straight little 
nose and those rather high cheek-bones which somehow 
seem to enhance the value of the eyes above them. The 
eyes in question were long and hazel, with tiny specks of 
black and gold in the iris and, at their outer corners, a 
faint, artistically drawn line of shadow served to complete 
anything which Nature might have left to chance in their 
setting of brow and cheek-bone. Beneath the smart little 
draped toque, with its single inimitable touch of vivid 
tangerine, gleamed burnished hair that unmistakably 
owed a part of its coppery sheen to a judicious application 
of henna. 

Its owner sighed discontentedly. 

“And it’s all a sheer waste here!” she remarked in heart¬ 
felt tones. 

Certainly the little Italian lakeside village of Varesina 
seemed a most inappropriate mise en scene for a woman of 
the type of Cara Daventry. A scattered handful of villas 
perched above the borders of the mountain-girdled lake, 


4 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


meandering village streets, primitive and pavementless, 
but boasting a few desirable shops where cob-webby lace, 
leather work, and exquisite trifles in frail tortoiseshell 
were enticingly displayed to tempt the tourist, and one 
really good hotel—these comprised the whole of Varesina’s 
attractions. At least, from Mrs. Daventry’s essentially 
material standpoint. The tranquil beauty of the place, 
with its grave, snow-capped mountains, its placid stretch 
of blue water, broken here and there by tree-crowned 
islands or by a splash of color as a boat with gayly 
colored awning drifted by, appealed to her not at all. As 
she had written to a friend in London: “You can’t live 
exclusively on a beautiful view; at any rate, I can’t.” 

She had happened on the place by accident. An ac¬ 
quaintance who had spent several weeks there in company 
with a party of friends had painted a glowing picture for 
her of the manifold delights of Varesina, quite uncon¬ 
sciously discounting the fact that it was the society of 
kindred spirits equally as much as the picturesque en¬ 
vironment which had contributed to her enjoyment, and 
Mrs. Daventry, alone in an hotel that was now half empty, 
had been utterly and irretrievably bored since the very day 
of her arrival. 

Still, it was of no use sulking in her bedroom when the 
sun beckoned her outside, and, selecting by sheer force of 
habit a sunshade that toned artistically with her frock, she 
made her way downstairs and strolled through the deserted 
gardens until she came to the edge of the lake. Here a 
small jetty jutted out into the water, edged by a low stone 
wall, and with a flight of steps leading down from it to 
the water’s level. One or two boats, moored at the foot of 
the steps, lay almost motionless on the still surface, and 
she paused, glancing towards them uncertainly. Finally, 
feeling even too listless to attempt a pull on the lake, she 
unfurled her sunshade and, subsiding on to the wall, sat 
staring broodingly across at the snow-topped mountains. 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


5 


It was wonderfully quiet. Hardly a sound broke the 
warm, reposeful silence, and for a long time sbe remained 
absorbed in her thoughts. But presently, gradually pierc¬ 
ing her consciousness, came an even, rhythmic sound like 
the pulse of an engine and, looking up, she saw a motor- 
boat making its way towards the jetty. There was only 
one figure in the boat, the lean, athletic figure of a man. 
His build and the fair, kinky hair which the sunlight 
turned to gold stamped him as unmistakably English, and 
instinctively Mrs. Daventry’s half-absent gaze quickened 
to attention. The boat drew nearer, slowed down. It was 
almost alongside the jetty. A feeling of desperation took 
possession of her. It seemed ages since she had spoken to 
a man—a real, live Englishman. Her arm jerked spas¬ 
modically, and the next moment her sunshade flew out of 
her grasp and alighted on the surface of the water, where 
it bobbed up and down like a big, gayly painted mushroom. 

The man in the motor-boat swerved its bows in the sun¬ 
shade’s direction. 

“All right,” he called. ‘Til get it.” 

Five minutes later he was standing, parasol in hand, at 
Mrs. Daventry’s side. 

“It’s dripping wet. You’d better let me carry it back 
to the hotel for you,” he said. “You are staying there, 
aren’t you ?” 

“Yes. I’m staying there,” she answered. “How did 
you guess?” 

“Well, for one thing I saw you coming across the 
gardens about half an hour ago. And, in any case, there’s 
nowhere else where any one—like you—could possibly be 
staying.” 

He smiled, and Cara thought his smile was the most 
delightful one she had ever seen. It began in his eyes— 
those very blue eyes of his—and ended crookedly at his 
mouth, slanting it up whimsically a little to one side. He 


6 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


was about thirty, she supposed, and devoutly hoped he was 
unattached. 

“How ripping for me !’ 7 he exclaimed boyishly, as they 
strolled towards the hotel together. “I only arrived here 
this morning, and now, thanks to your sunshade 77 —he 
shook it lightly and the drops of water flew from it in a 
crystal spray—“we shan’t need to glare at each other for 
several days before we dare to make acquaintance . 77 

“It’s ripping for me, too , 77 she returned. 

“Oh, I expect you’ve made heaps of friends here 
already , 77 he said discontentedly. 

She laughed outright. 

“I should be very clever if I had! The hotel is half 
empty, and such visitors as there are seem to be mostly 
American tourists who rush out sight-seeing all day and 
play bridge all evening, a few Milanese whose principal 
occupation is fishing in the lake, and one or two English— 
of the sort who would never make friends without a proper 
introduction! There goes one of them,” she added, nod¬ 
ding rather slightingly in the direction of a tall, angular 
woman with iron-gray hair and a remarkably high-bridged 
nose, who was also heading for the hotel, accompanied by 
a slip of a girl of seventeen. 

“Good Lord!” Mrs. Daventry’s companion went ofi 
into a shout of laughter. “That’s my respected aunt, Lady 
Erskine, with her daughter. I’d no notion they were stay¬ 
ing here.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry-” Cara flushed uncomfortably. 

“You needn’t be, one little bit,” he assured her cheer¬ 
fully. “We dislike each other as cordially as most rela¬ 
tives. And she’s exactly what you’ve described her—about 
as friendly as Cleopatra’s Needle.” 

In the lounge he left her and went off dutifully to pay 
his respects to his aunt, who was waiting regally to greet 
him before she entered the lift. Cara, watching him shake 
hands with mother and daughter, was aware of a fleeting, 



MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


7 


hostile glance leveled at her from under lowered lids by 
the elder woman, and surmised that Lady Erskine must 
have seen her walking with her nephew in the hotel 
gardens—seen and disapproved. 

“Wants him for that bread-and-butter daughter of hers,” 
was Mrs. Daventry’s inward comment, and she forthwith 
mentally proclaimed a state of war. All along she had 
been conscious of a subdued animosity towards the 
Erskines, who had somewhat pointedly taken no notice of 
her since her arrival at the hotel, and now she derived a 
certain malicious amusement from the fact that her ac¬ 
quaintance with their quite desirable relative obviously 
afforded them anything but satisfaction. 

The man who had rescued her sunshade from a watery 
grave proved to be even more desirable than she had antici¬ 
pated. The hotel register declared him to be Sir Roger 
Heriot, of Heriot’s Court, and her knowledge of Debrett 
was amply sufficient to assure her that he was numbered 
amongst the most eligible bachelors of the moment. 

To Cara Daventry this fact was of enormous signifi¬ 
cance. Life had not hitherto been particularly kind to 
her. She possessed nothing beyond the tiny income which 
she had inherited from her father, and for more years 
now than she cared to remember she had reenforced it in 
various little ways that did not bear too close inspection— 
at least, not from the point of view of the sheltered, cared- 
for woman whose husband always foots the bills. 

Mrs. Daventry had no husband to undertake this very 
necessary office for her, and it was said that she was not at 
all averse to allowing other people’s husbands—or sons, as 
the case might be—to atone for this deficiency. “Such 
jewelery, too, my dear! She never bought it herself; of 
that you may be sure.” This was the kind of whispered 
gossip that pursued her, and wherever she went, des¬ 
perately though she might try to keep in with the right 
people, some one invariably turned up who had known of 


8 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


her elsewhere, and soon afterwards a certain chilliness in 
the social atmosphere became apparent, and Mrs. Dav- 
entry, as an acquaintance, was gently allowed to “slide.” 

Latterly, things had grown more difficult than ever; 
she had even trenched upon her small capital to keep 
going, and there were occasional moments when sheer 
terror of the future caught her by the throat. Marriage 
held out the only hope of salvation, and, owing to that 
shrewd instinct of distrust which warned vigilant mothers 
to shepherd their sons determinedly away from her, the 
prospect of achieving matrimony grew more remote with 
each succeeding year. 

But now, thanks to that happy inspiration regarding her 
sunshade, a vista of glorious possibilities—such as she had 
long believed inexorably closed to her—had suddenly 
opened at her feet. The frank admiration in Roger 
Heriot’s blue eyes assured her of that, and here, in this 
lonely, romantic spot on the shores of Lake Maggiore, she 
felt that for once she had a clear field. She had been 
quick enough to sense Lady Erskine’s silent disapproba¬ 
tion, but she did not think the latter would injure her 
chances much, seeing that Heriot obviously cared precious 
little for his august relative’s opinion. And, in any case, 
an aunt was a much less difficult proposition than a 
mother. 

Cara plunged into this new campaign with high hopes 
of success. She and Heriot went out often together on the 
lake, sometimes in the motor-boat which, as he gayly ob¬ 
served, “effected our first introduction,” sometimes in one 
of the rowing-boats, its cool white awning sheltering them 
from the blazing sun while Roger pulled leisurely at the 
oars and Cara lay back against the cushions in the stern, 
pretending to steer. They played tennis together on the 
one extremely bad court which was all the hotel boasted, 
and climbed the mountains, occasionally on foot, but more 
often by means of the funny little funicular railways 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 0 

which wound their way up their steep sides. And at last, 
of course, the inevitable happened. 

It was one evening when the moon was sailing through 
the sky like a great golden globe, and Roger had abruptly 
suggested a turn on the lake by moonlight. 

“Will you come?” he asked, a queer note of urgency in 
his voice. “It was on the lake we first met.” And then 
Cara guessed why he wanted it, and she agreed a little 
breathlessly. 

Roger, coming out of the hotel a few minutes later with 
a rug slung over his arm, encountered Lady Erskine. 

“You’re going on the lake,” she said, glancing at the rug 
rather as though it were an unpleasant species of cater¬ 
pillar. “I heard you ask that woman to go with you.” 

He nodded. 

“You heard me ask Mrs. Daventry,” he returned pleas¬ 
antly. “Any objection?” 

“Every objection. She’s a man-hunter, and you’re 
simply walking straight into the net with your eyes blindly 

shut. You don’t know all about her. If you did-” 

She paused significantly. 

“I know all I wish to, thank you,” he returned. “Mrs. 
Daventry has been quite frank. She’s told me she’s deadly 
hard up, and”—his voice softening—“I know she is 
lonely.” He smiled straight into Lady Erskine’s hard blue 
eyes. “And we’re going on the lake together.” 

He wheeled round and marched away, and although his 
aunt, suddenly realizing that matters had gone much 
further than she had suspected, called to him to come back, 
he apparently didn’t hear her. For a few minutes later 
she discerned his broad-shouldered figure and Mrs. Daven- 
try’s slender one standing side by side on the distant jetty, 
clearly silhouetted in the moonlight. 

“And, darling, do you mind how soon we’re married ?” 
said Roger joyously. “How that we’ve quite settled that 



10 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


we love each other and that we could neither of us possibly 
marry any one else, I don’t see any object in waiting.” 

The motor-boat had long since ceased to hum and lay 
idly rocking on the water in the middle of the lake, while 
two quite ridiculously happy people sat in the stern alter¬ 
nately making love and talking nonsense together. 

Marriage! Cara lifted her head from Roger’s shoulder 
and sat up suddenly. Why, that was the thing she had 
been aiming at, striving for, all these weeks, and now, 
now that she had accomplished her object and Heriot had 
asked her to be his wife, she had forgotten all about that 
part of it and remembered only that she loved him. The 
material side of the matter—the fact that the hand-to- 
mouth existence she had been living was over and done 
with, that her future was safe, her position assured—had 
never once entered her thoughts since the moment Roger 
had told her that he loved her and she had felt herself 
respend in every fiber of her being. She had been con¬ 
scious of nothing except the splendor and glory of their 
mutual love, and even while now she recognized all that 
marriage with Heriot would mean to her from a worldly 
standpoint, she felt inimitably thankful that she had had 
that one glorious moment of love, free from all material 
considerations. 

“Oh, Roger, I’m so glad, so glad!” she exclaimed im¬ 
pulsively, her voice a little shaken. 

“I’m glad, too,” he returned, not altogether understand¬ 
ing her, but boyishly exuberant in his new-found joy. 
“Glader than I can say, sweetheart.” 

The boat drifted on almost imperceptibly, and at times 
they talked together and at times let the tender silence 
of the night enfold them. When they spoke, it was of the 
wonderful life that would be theirs after they were mar¬ 
ried, of Heriot’s Court, the beautiful old house, dating 
from the Norman period, which had been the home of the 
Heriots since the days of William the Conqueror, and in- 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


11 


sensibly Cara gathered something of the high standards 
and tradition which Roger, like every Heriot worthy of 
the name, endeavored to live np to. 

“ ‘Truth and my sword/ ” said Roger, half-shyly trans¬ 
lating for her benefit the old Latin motto of the Heriots. 
“It’s rather nice, isn’t it, sweetheart ? The kind of clean, 
straightforward motto a man can grip. My grandfather 
had it carved across the nursery chimneypiece at Heriot, 
because he said his children couldn’t get used to the idea 
too soon. And I think he was right. To play the game, 
and play it straight; that’s the main thing.” 

“ ‘Truth and my sword,’ ” repeated Cara, and a shadow 
seemed to fall across her heart. Truth—sheer crystaline 
truth—did it count so much, then, in Roger’s eyes ? With 
an effort she thrust the thought aside, and it was almost a 
relief when he suggested that they should be turning home¬ 
ward. She agreed hastily, and sat idly trailing her fingers 
in the water while he busied himself restarting the motor. 
He was rather a long time about it, she thought. Once 
she heard the familiar hum and felt the boat steal forward 
a yard or two. Then came an irregular knocking and the 
little vessel seemed to shiver and stand still. Confused 
sounds issued from the covered-in vicinity of the engine, 
whither Roger had disappeared into the darkness—the 
clink of tools picked up and tossed down again, and once 
a hearty English “Damn!” was wafted up to her. At 
length Roger himself emerged, hot and rather grimy, his 
face adorned with a black and oily smudge which ran from 
brow to chin. 

“It’s all up!” he remarked succinctly. “That con¬ 
founded engine’s struck work for the night.” 

“What!” A look of dismay crossed Cara’s face. “You 
don’t mean—that the boat won’t go ?” 

“That’s just what I do mean,” he replied. “She won’t 
budge a yard.” 

“Then how shall we get back?” 


12 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


A whimsical smile tilted Heriot’s mouth. 

“We shan’t get hack—unless we find another boat to 
pick us up. And as there doesn’t seem to be a craft of any 
kind within hail, I’m afraid our chances don’t look very 
rosy.” 

“Do you mean we shall have to stay here all night?” 
gasped Cara. 

She had been caught in one or two not altogether dis¬ 
similar scrapes before, thanks to her own want of discre¬ 
tion, and her reputation had suffered a little tarnishing in 
consequence on each occasion. And now, it seemed too hard 
that, just as she was on the eve of a new and much more 
desirable kind of existence, this unlooked-for contretempts 
should arise. 

“Aren’t there any fishing-boats about?” she queried 
anxiously, her eyes searching the lake for any glimmer of 
a distant light. “There usually are.” 

Roger shook his head. 

“To-night seems to be an ‘off night’ with them,” he 
returned gloomily. “N’ever mind, darlingest. I’ll tuck 
you up in my coat and the rug, and you’ll be all right till 
the morning. Luckily, it’s warm weather.” 

“You might shout,” suggested Cara. “Some one may 
hear us from the shore.” 

“I’m afraid we’re too far out. And, anyway, I expect 
the whole of Varesina is sound asleep by this time.” 

Hot to lose any possible chance of rescue, however, he 
sent his voice lustily across the water again and again. 
But it produced no result. Apparently the inhabitants 
of Varesina were too deeply wrapped in slumber to be 
easily aroused. There was nothing for it, therefore, but 
to make the best of a bad job, and at last, with the rug 
drawn well up round her and leaning against Roger’s 
shoulder, Cara fell asleep. 

She woke to the sound of voices. It was already day¬ 
light and she found that a small fishing craft had pulled 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 13 

alongside the •motor-boat. Heriot explained that he had 
seen and hailed the fishermen, and that they had agreed 
to put them ashore and tow the motor-boat back to harbor. 
Half an hour later, as she and Roger, cold and very 
hungry, made their way up from the jetty, Cara saw one 
of the hotel windows go up and a dressing-gown-clad figure 
paused for a moment at the aperture to stare down at 
them. 

“My reputation will be quite gone,” she declared with 
a rather nervous laugh. 

Roger laughed too, and squeezed her arm reassuringly. 

“That matters to no one except your future husband,” 
he said masterfully. “And I’m satisfied.” 

She was conscious of a sudden thrill. It was as though, 
in those few words, Roger had epitomized the whole 
altered relationship in which she stood towards the world 
at large. Ho longer Mrs. Daventry, of nowhere in par¬ 
ticular, a woman whom the safely established members of 
her own sex regarded with a species of distrust, but the 
future wife of Heriot of Heriot’s Court, with the strong 
wall of a secure position fencing her round from adverse 
comment and innuendo. Henceforth she was to be one of 
the sheltered women. It was almost unbelievable, and 
when she reached the seclusion of her own room she went 
down on her knees in a passion of gratitude and thanks¬ 
giving. 

But she had forgotten the dressing-gowned figure at the 
window. Lady Erskine, watching with scandalized eyes 
the return of her nephew and Mrs. Daventry in the cold 
gray light of the early morning, summed up the whole sit¬ 
uation in two angry syllables. 

“The minx!” 

Immediately after breakfast she made a praiseworthy 
effort to save Heriot from his folly. She listened to his 
explanation of the night’s events with a cynically superior 
smile. 


14 MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 

“Very clever of her indeed/’ she commented, “to think 
of tampering with the engine. I suppose she told you she 
had ruined her reputation?” 

Roger’s eyes twinkled. 

“She did mention the word ‘reputation/ ” he admitted. 

“She would! And of course you think you’ve got to 
marry her now ?” 

“I am going to marry her/’ he returned quietly. 

Lady Erskine’s eyes narrowed. There was something 
in Roger’s quiet speech which convinced her. 

“You can’t/’ she said swiftly. “You can’t marry that 
woman, Roger.” 

His face set itself in suddenly stern lines, 

“Aunt Marion, I can’t allow you to adopt that tone 
regarding my future wife.” 

“But that’s just it. You mustn’t make her your wife.” 
Eor once genuine feeling sounded in Lady Erskine’s voice. 
“You can’t—you can’t put a woman of that sort in your 
mother’s place.” 

“What do you mean ?” She had got through his guard 
at last with that reference to his sainted, adored mother, 
the woman who had reigned as a very great lady at 
Heriot’s Court until the day of her death. “What do you 
mean? You’ve said either too much or too little. You 
must explain, please.” 

“There’s very little explanation required. Whatever 
else she is, that woman is not Mrs. Daventry.” 

“It’s a lie!” 

Lady Erskine’s thin lips curled. 

“Is it?” she said coldly. “Then ask her. Ask her, 
and find out for yourself.” 

“I will,” he answered. And, wheelng round, he went 
impulsively in search of Cara. 

He found her in a sun-bathed corner of the garden, 
and as she greeted him with a happy little smile he hated 
his errand. But he had no thought of evading it. 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


15 


“Belovedest,” he said, standing squarely in front of her, 
“I’ve got something perfectly beastly to ask you.” 

The gravity in his voice sent her heart racing. In an 
instant she felt that something threatened. 

“What—what is it ?” she faltered. 

“It’s nothing, really. Oh, darling, don’t look like that 
—there’s no need. It’s this: Are you, or are you not, 
Mrs. Daventry? I know it sounds ridiculous, and I feel 
a perfect fool asking you such a question. But something’s 
been said—something utterly idiotic—and so I just want 
you to tell me that you are Mrs. Daventry.” 

In the pause that followed Cara’s mind worked with 
lightning-like rapidity. She had faced bad moments be¬ 
fore, but never anything quite so bad as this. Her head 
drooped a little. 

“Suppose—suppose I told you I was not Mrs, Daven¬ 
try?” she said slowly. 

“But you are, you must be!” Roger made a quick step 
forward, and for the first time fear crept into his eyes. 
“Cara, what do you mean ?” 

Suddenly she lifted her head and smiled straight at him. 
She had come to a decision. 

“I don’t mean anything very dreadful,” she said lightly. 
“It’s only that I’m not married really. I’m Miss Dav¬ 
entry. But as I was traveling alone, I called myself Mrs. 
because it made things so much easier. A girl traveling 
alone, you know—oh, don’t you understand, Roger? You 
must.” 

A great sigh of relief burst from him. 

“Yes, of course I understand, darling. But it was a 
pity you did it. It wasn’t a bit necessary, really, and you 
see how it might give rise to misunderstandings.” 

“Yes, I see,” she answered seriously. “I never thought 
of it that way. You’re—you’re not angry, Roger?” 

“Ho, of course not. But I wish you hadn’t done it.” 

“I wish it, too, now, since it displeases you.” 


16 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


“Never mind.” He laughed and kissed her. “It’s only 
—don’t you see?—‘Truth and my sword.’ Even in little 
things it’s worth sticking to. Now let’s go out and climb 
mountains, shall we ?” 

They did not return from their expedition until the 
evening, and then it was to learn that Lady Erskine had 
received a wire recalling her to England, and that she and 
her daughter and maid had hastily packed up their be¬ 
longings and left Varesina by the afternoon train, so that 
Roger would be perforce compelled to deny himself until 
their next meeting the very human satisfaction of proving 
to his aunt how absurdly she had been making a mountain 
out of a molehill. 

“It’s quite a good notion, that of going back to Eng¬ 
land,” he remarked reflectively, when he heard the news 
of the Erskines’ departure. 

“Why, haven’t you liked it here?” queried Cara. A 
sudden fear of leaving Varesina swept across her. It was 
so tranquil, so perfect, here on the shores of the lake, just 
she and Roger alone together. The thought of returning 
to England filled her with a queer sort of alarm. 

“I’ve loved it,” returned Heriot. “Every minute of it. 
But I shall love everything in the world better when 
you’re my wife. So let’s go back to England and get 
married, sweetest. Shall we ?” 

Cara leant back in her corner of the railway carriage 
and stared absently out of the window at the fields and 
hedges as they flew past. It was only a week now to the 
day fixed for her wedding, and she was on her way to 
Roger’s home. He had begged her to run down from 
London for a day so that they could discuss certain new 
decorations he was planning to have put in hand whilst 
they were absent on their honeymoon. 

He met her at the station, and waiting outside was the 
Rolls-Royce, an immaculate footman in livery standing at 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 17 

the door. Soon they were slipping smoothly along the 
country road and presently passed a lodge and swept up 
the long avenue of elms which led to Heriot’s Court. A 
woman at the lodge curtsied respectfully as she swung the 
gates apart, and when the doors of the stately old house 
were opened by the butler to admit them, Cara received 
a fleeting impression of other men-servants waiting in the 
background. 

She gave a little inward gasp as the realization broke 
upon her that all these things—the stately park, with its 
beautiful old house, cars, servants, all this environment 
of ease and luxury, would henceforth be part and parcel 
of her own life. The contrasting recollection of the past, 
with its pinchings and scrapings and wretched little make¬ 
shifts filled her with a wild desire to laugh. 

After lunch, Roger showed her over the place, room 
after room, each with its note of character, its bit of his¬ 
tory. The hall, where ancient suits of armor glinted from 
dusky corners, and where hung the tattered banners of past 
days, stained with the blood of Heriots who had died for 
king and country. Gardens—a riot of gorgeous color—the 
Italian garden, the Dutch garden, the rosery, each of 
which had been the special pride and care of one or other 
bygone generation. And over all that inalienable atmos¬ 
phere of tradition, of things old and valued and very pre¬ 
cious, the suggestion of some hidden spiritual standard to 
which life in all its aspects was definitely attuned. Cara 
was vibrantly conscious of it, and it made her feel some¬ 
how small and paltry and cheap. 

“It’s very beautiful—your home, Roger,” she said at 
last. 

“Yes,” he answered quietly. “I love every stick and 
stone of it, and all the memories that to me are an integral 
part of it. Fm not in the least a snob, but there’s some¬ 
thing in having a long line of brave men and splendid 
women at your back. It means something. It puts a car- 


18 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


tain compulsion on you to live up to what they have been 
—a duty to a name that has always stood for faith and 
honor and the things that count.” 

A name that has always stood for faith and honor! 
Cara’s hand went swiftly up to her throat and she glanced 
at him with suddenly frightened eyes. 

“Does it mean—so much to you ?” she asked hesitantly. 

“Yes,” he said simply. “It means everything. It’s like 
a torch that is handed on from one generation to another, 
and now it’s come to my turn. It’s up to me to hand that 
torch on, just as I received it, to my children and to their 
children after them.” 

Almost as though she were in a dream she accompanied 
him to the picture gallery where hung the portraits of 
dead and gone Heriots. They seemed to look down at her 
with grave, questioning eyes, as though they asked: “Are 
you worthy to become one of us, to hand on the torch ?” 

They paused longest beneath the portrait of Roger’s 
mother. 

“She was very wonderful,” he said. “I wish you could 
have known her, belovedest. She would have been so glad 
to know that you and I had found each other.” 

A little chill shiver ran through her. He spoke so con¬ 
fidently. 

Last of all he took her upstairs into a big room where 
the gay, jolly wall-paper, with its milkmaids and Cinder- 
ellas and big and little bears carried you back to the good 
days when fairy tales were quite the most real part of life. 

“This has always been the nursery,” he said. “Look.” 
And he drew her forward so that she could see carved 
across the high, old-fashioned chimneypiece the Heriot 
motto. 

“ ‘Truth and my sword/ ” he went on. “I grew up 
with that always before my eyes. And for our children, 
Cara”—his voice deepened—“it will be there for them, 
too. We’d want them to play the straight game, darling- 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


19 


est, to learn from the beginning that that’s the only thing 
that really matters.” 

Again she felt that slight, chill shiver run through her. 
It was like the fleeting touch of a steel blade against bare 
flesh. 

“Yes,” she answered mechanically. “We’d want them— 
to play the straight game.” 

“Why did you send for me ? What’s wrong, sweet¬ 
heart ?” 

The tender eagerness of his tone hurt her incredibly. 
She knew that after to-day—after she had told him what 
she had sent for him to tell him—she would never again 
hear that note in his voice. It had taken her days—or was 
it years ?—to nerve herself to do it, to make up her mind. 
And yet, dully, subconsciously she thought she must have 
known all along that she would do this, known it ever 
since he had spoken of those children—those dream-chil¬ 
dren of his and hers. “We’d want them to play the 
straight game.” And playing the straight game was some¬ 
times the hardest thing on earth. She knew that, too, 
now. But she was going to do it, because quite suddenly 
she found that she couldn’t filch from Roger his inheri¬ 
tance, that inheritance of his of a name which had always 
stood for faith and honor and all that was essentially fine. 
And if she married him she would rob both him and those 
dream-children. 

In the silence of her little room, high up in the tall gray 
house in London, she had faced the matter squarely. De¬ 
liberately she was going to shut herself out from the 
splendid, glowing life which would have been hers as 
Roger’s wife—the sheltered, assured life that other women 
carelessly accepted as their right—and go back to the same 
old makeshift existence as before, clinging desperately to 
the fringe of society, cadging—oh, yes, she might as well 
call the thing by its real name—cadging lunches and 


20 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 


dinners and theater tickets, and even the settlement of 
overdue dressmakers’ bills. 

And now Roger was standing in front of her with eager, 
questioning eyes, waiting to help her, to put right what¬ 
ever small difficulty might be vexing her. The irony of it! 

“What’s wrong, sweetheart ?” 

She got it out somehow—the pitiful little story which 
had been buried more than seven years ago of a man and 
a woman—a child-woman, hardly out of her teens—and 
of the sudden reckless flare of passionate love between 
them; of a runaway match and a marriage that was no 
marriage at all, because the man already had a wife, and 
after a few mad weeks of delirious happiness the in¬ 
evitable bitter ending. 

“His wife refused to divorce him. Instead, she offered 
to take him back, to forgive him. But for me—for me 
there was no forgiveness.” Cara’s voice broke, then stead¬ 
ied again. “So, you see, Roger, I can’t marry you. I’m 
not fit—to hand on the torch.” 

She ceased, and sat with down-bent head and folded 
hands, waiting, waiting through the tense silence which 
followed for what must come, the scathing denunciation, 
the scorn, the anger of a man who felt himself duped. 

“Why did you tell me, Cara ?” 

That was all. Just that one simple question, very 
quietly uttered. 

With an effort she lifted her eyes to his face. But she 
could not read his expression. 

“Why ?” Her hands clasped themselves more tightly 
together. “Because—after I’d been down to Heriot’s 
Court—I knew that it was no good. I couldn’t let you 
marry me. Our future would only have been founded 
upon a sham. I—I had to play—the straight game.” 

Again the silence fell. It seemed to Cara like a high 
wall closing round her. Roger had moved a little away 
and was standing in the window embrasure, his back 


MRS. DAVENTRY’S REPUTATION 21 

towards her. It was symbolical, she reflected dully— 
Roger, always with his face turned away from her, now 
that he knew—now that he knew- 

Suddenly he swung round and, coming over to her side, 
took her in his arms. 

“Belovedest,” he said, his voice a little roughened, 
“I’m so glad, so awfully proud you’ve told me. I hoped 
you would some day. Because, you see, I knew it all 
before.” 

“You knew it?” 

“Yes, I’ve known all about it ever since we came back 
to England. Dear Aunt Marion was very careful to make 
sure I should. But it doesn’t matter any more. All that 
matters is the straight game—‘Truth and my sword.’ And 
you’ve played it—magnificently.” 




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